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Don't avoid workplace politics

terriblesoftware.org

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Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#21

Post by exmadscientist »

daft_pink wrote: post #4

Should be titled Stop Avoiding Workplace Politics? It’s not a discussion of the toxic political environment we live in today.

It turns out that that the degree to which you can avoid politics is proportional to the number of other people involved. You can probably safely ignore international politics: there are around 8 billion other people involved in it, and unless you are prepared to devote most of your time to it, you probably aren't going to move any needles anywhere.

Family politics, on the other hand, involves maybe a dozen people. Usually less. We don't even call it "family politics" even though it really kind of is. Family politics is important and you can not opt out unless you don't want (this) family. Even disengagement is a form of active participation here!

Somewhere in between, there is a line. The author says (and I agree) that workplace politics is on the "really you should be caring" side.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#22

Post by mindcrime »

jitl wrote: post #8
amarant wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tribeless suits me just fine. The whole reason I avoid politics is because it's not solution oriented. I don't get the feeling people discussing politics are trying to solve any problems, they're just fighting a tribal war, to have their tribe win over the other tribe(s). Tribe cohesion seems to be valued waay higher than end results, and I'm a results-oriented person, so politics just isn't an attractive passtime to…

Did you read the article? > feeling people discussing politics are trying to solve any problems it's explicitly about how you need to work in political ways to solve problems at work. It's not about country-wide politics or something.

> Did you read the article?

FWIW, the HN guidelines[1] specifically ask that we not do that.

Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#23

Post by teddyh »

amarant wrote: post #3
gm678 wrote: post #2

> Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either above humanity, or below it; he is the ‘Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one,’ whom Homera denounces — the outcast who is a lover of war; he may be compared to a bird which flies alone. Sure, Aristotle wasn't talking about corporations, b…

Tribeless suits me just fine. The whole reason I avoid politics is because it's not solution oriented. I don't get the feeling people discussing politics are trying to solve any problems, they're just fighting a tribal war, to have their tribe win over the other tribe(s). Tribe cohesion seems to be valued waay higher than end results, and I'm a results-oriented person, so politics just isn't an attractive passtime to…

> Tribeless suits me just fine.

Just because you’re not a part of the prominent tribes that you see around you does not make you tribeless.

— […] and I have no culture of my own.

— Yes you do. You’re a culture of one. Which is no less valid that a culture of one billion.

— Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 6, episode 16, Birthright, Part I

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#24

Post by rossdavidh »

"Think about the last time a terrible technical decision got pushed through at your company. Maybe it was adopting some overcomplicated architecture, or choosing a vendor that everyone knew was wrong, or killing a project that was actually working. I bet if you dig into what happened, you’ll find it wasn’t because the decision-makers were stupid. It’s because the people with the right information weren’t in the room."

Well, it's a decent article, but that paragraph does not match my experience. In my experience, it's typically because there's a non-technical reason why the technical decision was done badly:

1) devs, or their supervisors, or both want Hot New Thing on their resumes

2) in order to get Good New Thing purchased, the Old Bad Thing must be shown to be unworkable, so saving Old Bad Thing with a clever solution is undesirable

3) org needs a system using New Buzzword, to show to VC's or others, and this is the opportunity to use New Buzzword, whether it makes sense here or not

None of these are reasons that I like, but they are also reasons that are very convincing to most people, especially high-ranking decision makers.

I don't mean to suggest that the articles points like "Building relationships before you need them", etc. aren't a good idea. Just don't expect it to have a very high success rate in winning debates about "terrible technical decisions".

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#25

Post by marcosdumay »

mlsu wrote: post #14
amarant wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tribeless suits me just fine. The whole reason I avoid politics is because it's not solution oriented. I don't get the feeling people discussing politics are trying to solve any problems, they're just fighting a tribal war, to have their tribe win over the other tribe(s). Tribe cohesion seems to be valued waay higher than end results, and I'm a results-oriented person, so politics just isn't an attractive passtime to…

The counterpoint to this is that in order to motivate large groups of people to get stuff done, you need to be 'involved.' A good leader cannot be someone who says "we're above all of this" -- they have to be involved, they have to influence, and they use their influence to productive ends. You actually cannot be solution oriented without politics. If you are "not involved in politics," that means that politics is in…

The problem is way more "involved in what exactly?" than whether people should be involved or not.

The GP is right that people tend to name stuff as "politics" when there is no external goal. And getting involved on those is just bad.

But also, the GP is wrong if you go with the formal definition for that word, like you are doing.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#26

Post by pelagicdev »

While I agree that avoiding/ignoring politics isn't helpful to anyone, it still doesn't have a place at work. My view is, people are going to disagree on politics, and therefore it just gets into a debate, or worse, an agrument at the office or in chat and makes the whole situation more ugly than the manager and/or employer wants to have to deal with.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#27

Post by suzdude »

amarant wrote: post #3
gm678 wrote: post #2

> Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either above humanity, or below it; he is the ‘Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one,’ whom Homera denounces — the outcast who is a lover of war; he may be compared to a bird which flies alone. Sure, Aristotle wasn't talking about corporations, b…

Tribeless suits me just fine. The whole reason I avoid politics is because it's not solution oriented. I don't get the feeling people discussing politics are trying to solve any problems, they're just fighting a tribal war, to have their tribe win over the other tribe(s). Tribe cohesion seems to be valued waay higher than end results, and I'm a results-oriented person, so politics just isn't an attractive passtime to…

> I don't get the feeling people discussing politics are trying to solve any problems

It depends on what you view a "discussing politics". To borrow a quote, "politics is the art of the possible." You have to use politics to define what problems are even considered, much less the possible ways they might get solved.

For instance, unlimited spending on political campaigns is either a problem, or not a problem, depending on your politics, never mind if it should be solved via amendment, court packing, or congressional act[1].

I agree, many people go hardcore on tribalism. I would likely agree it is a bad thing that many Americans define politics as, "us" and, "them". If you want to be results oriented, you have to convince people it's a problem, you're going to need to use politics to do so.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#28

Post by bongodongobob »

rossdavidh wrote: post #24

"Think about the last time a terrible technical decision got pushed through at your company. Maybe it was adopting some overcomplicated architecture, or choosing a vendor that everyone knew was wrong, or killing a project that was actually working. I bet if you dig into what happened, you’ll find it wasn’t because the decision-makers were stupid. It’s because the people with the right information weren’t in the room.…

Agreed. In my experience, a lot of this has been the XY problem. C level has a legitimate need or problem, they think they've solved it by asking for technology Z and the people who actually know the systems aren't consulted. When they do push back, it's seen as not following orders, so now we have to shoehorn in some dumb solution that doesn't fit in with the rest of the env. It works, so leadership doesn't understand why it's a problem.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#29

Post by shadowgovt »

ndriscoll wrote: post #13

> Stop pretending you’re above politics. You’re not. Nobody is. The only question is whether you’ll get good at it or keep losing to people who already are. False. You do not lose if you do not play. You can offer your expertise/opinions and point out places where things could be improved, but at the end of the day, just treat work as someone paying for your time. If you've advised them on how to best make use of tha…

I think this is saying the same thing as the author, with the possible exception that the author is operating under the assumption that curtailing one's career at a particular level is "losing." It isn't for everyone, and it's a perfectly rational decision to top out as a really good individual contributor or senior software engineer.

... but at some point in a corporate setting, the job becomes about people, not just technology, because all businesses end up being about people. Deciding not to address that sends a very heavy signal to anyone with authority to put a person in a position of high authority in a company that they don't want that authority. You can't just-write-really-good-code your way towards being CTO or senior VP of anything; eventually, you'll meet the challenge of "Someone else has another idea to do it, and maybe it's worse than yours or maybe it's equivalently good but optimizes along other axes than yours, and if your answer to them asserting we should all use their solution is 'I don't do politics' then the company will use the solution that was advocated for and better, worse, or indifferent, yours will be interpreted as under-supported and routed around."

> well it's their money.

And, indeed, for those of us who don't do politics, it always will be their money and not ours.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#30

Post by stego-tech »

This, this, this, but with a few caveats I’ve learned for myself (both government politics and corporate politics):

* Politics in a derogatory sense is simply bad governance. It’s bad ideas leading to bad decisions, often supported by bad data or bad justifications. In government, that “bad” might be a shade of “-ism” (corporatism, fascism, authoritarianism, racism, sexism, etc), while in corporate realms it’s often either straight dicta from the executive team or manipulative malfeasance from bad actors further down the chain

* Good politics and good governance are indistinguishable from one another, by and large.

* If consensus is reached by those acting in the best interests of the organization in the long haul, everyone involved should feel fairly invigorated afterwards. That rush is what gets folks into politics more broadly, and is how movements grow

* Cooperation, historically, breeds more success than mere competition. Bad actors wielding politics as a cudgel generally try to deter others from participating because they desire competition as a means of preventing others from achieving success.

* Politics isn’t necessarily deceitful, as the OP gets into. It’s about building relationships and understanding goals, then acting collaboratively to achieve them.

* “Politics-free zones” only serve to enable the bad actors in a space, who use that label to advance their (often indefensible) ideals and clamp down on dissent.

A lot of us in tech need to do better with politics if we want technology to change the world for the better, instead of merely serve the whims of billionaire griftos or regimes hostile to human rights.

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